Logan Square gentrifiers have a choice: Help longtime residents or push them out

It’s 1991, my two aunts and grandmother — hardworking recent immigrants from Mexico, trying to live the American dream — decide to become homeowners of a rundown multi-family apartment building. An ordinary apartment on Central Park and Armitage avenues at first glance, but after several years of memories and downfalls, this apartment represents much more. A liquor store, two schools, a market and an abandoned railroad track all fall in a three-block radius.

Over 20 years later, the liquor and grocery store have changed names, the schools are holding Know Your Rights workshops, and the abandoned rail track is a trail modeled after New York’s High Line. This place, where hundreds walk, talk, bike and enjoy today, used to be a place where, growing up, I was not allowed to go even though it was at the end of the block. A place where gangbangers would smoke, drink, shoot and kill.

The trail was built and my property value increased four times what it was bought for. Seems like a great deal, if it didn’t come along with the increased property taxes. Slowly, neighbors I grew up with started moving out — and are still moving out. The neighborhood where I knew everybody is now filled with strangers. There is no more affordable housing in Logan Square. Along the 606 there are new condominiums being built; once one is finished another house is being torn down. Of course, the 606 wasn’t the start or cause of gentrification, but it is a catalyst for gentrification.

I walk down the street and see men walking with long hair and untrimmed beards. Or women in culturally appropriated clothing. They’re entering cafes and vegan restaurants that used to be liquor stores and little Mexican shops. I used to see gangbangers on every corner, and now I see dogs in clothes and shoes.

Summer, fall and winter of 2016 I knocked on doors, collecting signatures for a new ordinance that would help keep families from being displaced and keep housing affordable. I always knock eagerly, expecting people to agree and want change. But it’s the people who pay $3,000 easily a month for rent with degrees in every field who were the most ignorant, not realizing the consequences of gentrification. “Well, the community is safer now” and “this community is getting better” are phrases I’ve heard too often while on my door-knocking chronicles, but they mean nothing when a family of four has to move out of the home they’ve lived in for more than 20 years.

What is happening in Logan Square cannot be reverted, however helping keep families from being displaced and keeping the neighborhood economically and racially diverse should be a priority for people who choose to move there. The 606 was Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s baby, and he isn’t going to acknowledge the consequences. So it’s up to regular citizens to stand up, and choose to do something for the many families who helped Logan Square thrive.